Joe Biden takes '85-car' motorcade to Pope meeting days ahead of COP26
29 October 2021, 20:37 | Updated: 29 October 2021, 20:41
US president Joe Biden took an 85-car motorcade to his meeting with the Pope, according to a report.
It comes days before Mr Biden’s attendance at the COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow.
And, according to a White House release, the president used the meeting to “laud Pope Francis’ leadership in fighting the climate crisis”.
The Daily Mail recorded the long convoy of vehicles ahead of the meeting in Rome on Friday.
A normal presidential motorcade in Washington DC consists of about 45 vehicles.
However, the huge number of vehicles in Mr Biden’s motorcade could be partly explained by Italy’s current coronavirus restrictions.
The rules in Italy state that the number of "non-cohabiting people including the driver" allowed in a car is limited to three.
“The passenger seat next to the driver must remain free,” the rules also say.
“Passengers must sit on opposite sides of the rear seat leaving the centre seat free.”
Meanwhile, UK prime minister Boris Johnson has said COP26 is the "last opportunity" for humanity to prevent global temperature rises passing 1.5C.
With world leaders preparing to descend on Glasgow for the crucial climate summit, where countries are under pressure to increase their ambition to tackle the greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change, Mr Johnson said the human race had entered the last chance saloon on the environment.
What is COP26?
He said the focus needed to be on securing agreements for countries to cut their carbon output and stop global warming exceeding the target amount to prevent the worst impacts.
Speaking to the i newspaper, Mr Johnson said: "COP is really the last opportunity for the planet, humanity, to come together and keep alive the hope of restricting growth in temperatures to 1.5 degrees.
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"We are not going to stop climate change any time soon, and we are certainly not going to stop it at COP26.
"The most we can hope to do, and it is going to be incredibly difficult, is to restrict the growth by the end of the century to 1.5C."
